Parents ordered to pay £23k school fees after judge throws out race claim

Doctors claimed their three sons had been been bullied and racially abused at
a vegetarian school

Rose Rao (above) and Paul Schymanski took action against St. Christopher's School in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, claiming the lives of their sons, Josef, Johann and Frank, had been made a misery

7:39PM BST 30 Jul 2014

Parents who refused to pay their private school fees - claiming their three sons had been been bullied and racially abused at a vegetarian school - have had their complaints thrown out by a High Court judge.

Medical doctors Paul Schymanski and Rose Rao took legal action against £30,000-a-year St Christopher School, in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, claiming the lives of their sons, Josef, Johann and Frank, had been made a misery.

Amongst a catalogue of serious complaints, they said a teacher had humiliated Josef by calling him an "idiot" in front of other children and that Johann was not given proper care after he was hit by a cricket ball.

Staff at the indiosyncratic school - where eating meat is banned, there is no school uniform and pupils address teachers by their first names - had failed to protect their sons from racist bullying by other children and Frank had been wrongly diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, they said.

However, Mr Justice Holroyde said the couple had lost all sense of objectivity. There was "simply no evidence" that any of their mixed-race boys had been bullied or victimised, nor that any member of the school's staff was "motivated by racist views".

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Ordering the couple to cough up more than £23,000 in unpaid school fees, plus interest, the judge described their evidence as "unsatisfactory and unreliable" and their accusations against the school "unfounded".

The judge accepted that the couple were "devoted to their sons and justifiably proud of them". They had believed throughout that they were acting in the best interests of Josef, 15, Johann, 14, and Frank, 13, all of whom were now "prospering" at new schools.

But he told the court: "The parents' loss of objectivity has in my view been a prominent feature of the trial.

"The unhappy reality of the case is that the parents have on many occasions come to the view that one or more of the boys was in some way unhappy or underperforming and have simply assumed that the cause must lie in an unspecified fault on the part of the school".

The three boys were pupils at the school between September 2007 and April 2010. The court heard Dr Rao is of Kenyan ethnicity and her husband was born in Germany and is white.

St Christopher School - known as "St Chris" was founded in 1915 "to promote understanding amongst students of other cultures and religions" and create an environment "where all children are celebrated as individuals, regardless of their particular abilities". 26 per cent of its pupils are non-white.

It is the alma mater of, amongst others, film director Michael Winner, critic AA Gill and presenter George Lamb.

The parents made more than 20 complaints against the school and even produced "covert recordings" in an attempt to back up their accusations.

They said Josef had been sent back to class after being struck by a cricket ball, injuring his back. Not enough had been done to help Frank with his special educational needs before he was inappropriately diagnosed with Asperger's, they claimed.

There had, they claimed, been a general lack of communication between staff and parents; Josef in particular had suffered racist bulling and and their sons' welfare, happiness, self-confidence and self-esteem were generally undermined, they told the judge.

Describing the school as a "harmful environment", the couple said they had suffered "distress, upset, inconvenience and considerable anxiety" due to staff failings and that Josef and Johann had developed 'factitious illnesses' as an emotional response to their mistreatment.

But the judge described the school's witnesses as 'caring professionals' who did their best to give honest and accurate evidence.

He added: "The covert recordings belatedly disclosed by the parents have tended to confirm the evidence of the school's witnesses.

"In contrast, I regret to say that the I found the parents' evidence unsatisfactory and unreliable. They had no clear and coherent case to put forward, still less the evidence to support that case.

"In almost ever instance, the parents have failed to make clear what they say actually happened to one of the boys".

He told the court: "There is simply no evidence of bullying or victimisation of any of the boys and no evidence that the conduct of any member of staff towards any of the boys was motivated by racist views".

One teacher, Paul Kelly, had been wrongly accused by the couple of being a "racist bully", the judge finding that "no basis for that accusation was even put to him in cross-examination".

He added: "I must in fairness add that I am not at all sure that the parents were fully aware of just how serious some of their unfounded allegations were".

The parents' unwillingness to make any concessions showed that they had "so convinced themselves that their sons have been the victims of racial discrimination that they have lost all objectivity".

The judge concluded: "I therefore reject each of the serious allegations of racial discrimination and racially motivated bullying which have been made".

As well as having to settle the unpaid school fees, the judge's ruling means the couple now also face significant legal costs bills following a trial which stretched over 10 days.